A record year for Medicine offers

A group of ambitious Upper Sixth students will be heading off on study leave later this week, confident in the knowledge that they have secured a much-coveted offer to study Medicine at university.

Against an increasingly competitive national picture, we are very proud of our students’ success rate; this year, 11 students are holding a total of 23 offers from a range of institutions that include the Universities of Leeds, Liverpool and Exeter.

Deputy Head of Sixth Form, Lee Parkes, heads up the school’s dedicated programme that supports aspiring medics through the application process and is delighted with the range of offers received by this year’s cohort. 

He said: “Nationally, the number of applications for Medicine has increased every year since 2017 whilst the number of places available continues to fall. 

“I am incredibly proud that King’s students continue to buck the national trend, securing even more offers than previous years.”

Through a combination of relevant Enrichment activities, staff and peer support, mock admissions tests, and interviews with practising doctors, students in King’s Sixth Form are supported to achieve their goal from day one. 

In fortnightly Enrichment sessions, the Medics elective covers all the essentials for Medicine applicants, whilst the service strand of the Enrichment course gives students the opportunity to visit a care home, giving them invaluable experience for enhancing their Medicine applications. 

The popular MedSoc also runs fortnightly and focuses on techniques for MMI based interviews. Used by many Medical Schools, MMIs are a series of short assessment and interview stations designed to assess a variety of different skills in order to give the institution a better picture of each candidate. These could include role-play scenarios, calculation and data interpretation, professional judgement and problem-based questions and MedSoc ensures that the students are prepared for the variety of tasks they could be faced with.

Peer support is also key at King’s. As well as running MedSoc, successful Upper Sixth students hold a useful Q&A which gives next year’s applicants the most up-to-date insight into the process. Recent leavers are also invited into school to talk about their experiences and answer questions. 

Alongside this, time is allocated for mock UCAT and BMAT tests, as well as mock interviews with both school staff and external interviewers. This prepares students for the demanding application process, and also allows them opportunity to refine their technique and approach where necessary. 

Additional support is also offered by the school’s careers programme and supportive Alumni community.

Through a series of Careers Breakfasts and talks from alumni, students have multiple opportunities to meet and network with doctors from a wide range of specialities and institutions.

These opportunities often lead to offers of work shadowing or work experience, which further enhance our students’ applications. 

Mr Parkes believes that this high level of support is key to the success of King’s students: “Applying to study Medicine is a rigorous process that demands high predicted grades, an in-depth interview, an excellent – and relevant – personal statement, and a good performance in the entrance tests.

“At King’s, we prepare students for every aspect of the process and support them at every stage.”

One of this year’s successful students, Maisie O’Leary (U6DUT), spoke on behalf of the 11 offer holders. 

She said: “We are all very proud of what we’ve achieved. We’ve had to work very hard and we’re all incredibly grateful for the support we’ve received from school. 

“The rigorous medicine application and interview process can feel very daunting before you’ve experienced it first-hand, but with all the encouragement from school to take a pragmatic approach, alongside all the opportunities they gave us to practise interviewing, we were all very well prepared.”

We wish all of our aspiring medical students, some of whom are pictured here, the best of luck as they prepare to sit their A Level exams next month.